


Freshest of the Fresh

by nagi_schwarz



Category: Criminal Minds
Genre: Gen, pre-series AU
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-09
Updated: 2016-03-09
Packaged: 2018-05-25 16:14:42
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,945
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6202225
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nagi_schwarz/pseuds/nagi_schwarz
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It's Penelope's freshman year at Cal Tech, and she makes an unexpected friend</p>
            </blockquote>





	Freshest of the Fresh

**Author's Note:**

> a Support Stacie Auction story written based off of a slew of prompts from [this](http://twitter.com/writingprompt) handy twitter feed

**a found notebook**

Spencer found the notebook lying on the ground just outside the library. It was covered with a brightly-drawn pink hearts on a metallic cover and filled with loopy handwriting in a language that was utterly foreign. After rifling through the notebook a bit more, Spencer discovered that he wasn't staring at half-baked Russian poetry but a computer programming language, and the notebook belonged to one Penny Garcia. A glance at his wristwatch told him he was late for his next lecture, so Spencer shoved the notebook into his leather satchel and dashed for class. He'd stake out the library in his spare time and see if Penny Garcia would come back for her notebook. In the meantime, he was excited to get a jump on some linear algebra.

 

**weak**

Spencer clutched the strap of his satchel tightly, eyes wide as he peered up at the angry football player.

"I'm s-sorry. I, ah, was reading and didn't see –"

The bigger boy fisted Spencer's collar and dragged him close as if he weighed nothing. Spencer closed his eyes. He was weak, and he hated it.

"What the hell you doing walking around this campus anyway, shrimp?" The boy sneered. "Aren't you meant to be taking naptime at kindergarten or something?"

"Actually," Spencer began, "post-lunch naps have been shown to improve workplace efficiency in adults by –"

"Leave him be, Kenny," one of the boy's friends said. "I've seen him on campus. He lives on Freak Street with that skinny kid from India who's a neurosurgeon or whatever. He's not worth your time."

Kenny thought otherwise, and when Spencer finally met Penny Garcia, he had a black eye.

 

**"I'm sorry I just can't take it anymore."**

"What do you mean, _you_ can't take it anymore?" Spencer asked.

"Why do you let them treat you like that?" Penny flung her hands up and almost knocked her thick-rimmed glasses askew.

Spencer held the ice pack to his eye and peered cautiously around her room. He'd never been near the girls' dorms before, and he wondered if they all looked so…bright. She had feathers and sequins, seashells and stuffed animals, bright posters and colored lights everywhere.

"It's not like I've never been hit before." Spencer knew he was being defensive. "Look, I didn't mean to bother you. Just – here, take your notebook, all right?"

Penny spun to face him. "Is that all you have to say for yourself?"

Spencer rose to his feet and shoved the ice pack at her. He knew her type of concern – it was the same concern social workers had had when they'd come sniffing around the house, looking to take him away from his mother. "I'm sorry, I have to get to class." And he left.

 

**A cold cup of coffee, lightning & a puppy.**

Penelope's coffee was cold, but then she hadn't touched it since the waitress brought it over. Outside, lightning flashed, and students were scurrying for cover using books and binders and newspapers inadequate umbrellas.

The boy in the corner of the café was so short his legs didn't even touch the floor when he scooted all the way back in the booth, and his brown hair flopped into his eyes. She'd done some asking around, and she knew who he was, Spencer Reid, a fourteen-year-old prodigy from Las Vegas who'd been thrown into the prodigy dorms with a bunch of foreign geniuses who held court, cross-legged on the floor of their common room, expounding on medicine and philosophy while picking at scented rice with chopsticks or bare fingers.

Spencer read so fast it looked like he was just flipping through, scanning the pages and not finding a thing, but if rumors were right, he absorbed it all. Curled up like that on the booth, knees tucked under his chin, he reminded Penelope of a puppy. A miserable puppy. She wanted to sit next to him and pet his hair, like she did for her young neighbors she babysat. Penelope scooped up her cold coffee, rose to her feet, and crossed the café. Spencer barely registered her presence until she said,

"Tell me about quantum physics." She'd caught the title on the spine of his textbook.

Spencer blinked at her.

Penelope pushed the cup of coffee toward him. "I know they won't serve it to you because you're so young, but have a sip. Find out how we older teenagers roll."

Spencer blinked again. "You, ah, want to have a conversation?"

"I'm conversing, aren't I?"

Spencer tugged the coffee mug closer tentatively, took a sip, and nearly choked.

 

**warm butter**

Spencer liked the way warm butter melted, but then maybe he only liked the way it melted on the toast Penelope would bring him in the mornings when she met him outside the cafeteria.

"What did you learn last night, O Beautiful Mind of mine?" Today she was wearing a bright floral print dress and a polka-dotted headband, and she looked like a girl out of an Archie Comic. Spencer liked it. He still wasn't sure he liked her outrageous nicknames.

"I learned…math." He'd learnt to temper his long-winded, overly-detailed explanations about his math classes. "And I learned that Alvin and the Chipmunks make good music.

Penelope broke into a grin. "So you _did_ watch the video I lent you. Next, I'll have to show you T _he Exorcist_. It's technically Rated R, but if you can learn nuclear fission, you can watch a little scary stuff, right?"

"As long as you don't get me drunk," Spencer said.

 

**lesson learned**

"O-okay." Penelope lunged at the VCR and hit the power button. Several moments, later, still shaking like a leaf, Spencer poked his head out from beneath one of her fluffy pillows. "Maybe we'll leave off the horror movies till you're legal."

"Thanks," Spencer said. He rubbed his clammy palms on his jeans, and Penelope could see that he was nervous and embarrassed about what happened. She could barely comprehend what it must be, to have his mind, to know more than half his professors knew but be completely unable to process emotions as fast as his mind processed numbers.

Penelope plopped down beside him. "Well…since I've been on a long streak of corrupting you, I guess it's only fair that you corrupt me back. Tell me, Mr. Reid, what do geniuses do in their spare time?"

"You aren't corrupting me, Penelope," he began.

She raised her eyebrows. "And who's a demon when he hasn't had his morning cup of java?"

Spencer ducked his head and blushed. "Well –"

"That's not the point. Come on – show me something you like to do." Penelope leaned down to try to catch his gaze, but he avoided eye contact, scanned her room instead.

Then he reached out and scooped up something off the carpet. A black film canister. A smile spread across his face, and Penelope felt something in her melt just a little bit.

He held it out to her. "Have you ever made a rocket?"

 

**POV of a sidekick**

Spencer knew that the others on his floor thought he was Penelope's sidekick. Maybe he did sort of follow her around like a puppy, always half a step behind because she was taller than him, but that didn't matter. He felt like he was constantly caught up in the whirlwind of her energy, but she always had ideas for something to do, something to see. Spencer had never been to the beach before, and Penelope had refused to strip down to a swimsuit, but she showed him how to make sand castles.

"No, Spencer, it doesn't have to be an engineering feat or anything, just a simple, single-bailey castle." Penelope smoothed down the sides of her sand creation and smiled.

An elderly woman escorting her granddaughters shuffled by. She beamed at Penelope and said,

"It's so lovely to see a big sister spending time with her brother. So many kids your age are more interested in partying, but you're a good girl."

Spencer opened his mouth to correct the woman's misconception, but Penelope grinned and said,

"Spencer's more than my brother – he's my secret sidekick. We're superheroes on vacation. We catch bad guys and put them away, right?" And she winked at Spencer.

It took him a moment, but he nodded and smiled. "We catch them and put them away."

The old woman laughed. "Have fun, kids." And she herded her granddaughters on.

The next time Spencer heard the other boys whisper about him being Big Blondie's Sidekick, he smiled.

 

**overcast**

"It's an ugly day," Penelope said, peering out the window at the sky. It was gray and overcast. She'd wanted to sit out and study in the sun, bask in the warmth. She was pretty sure that if she didn't occasionally prove to Spencer that it was all right to check books _out_ of the library, he'd never see the sun.

"I guess we'll have to stay inside today." Spencer didn't sound all that disappointed. In fact, he sounded downright perky.

Penelope peered at him and realized he had to be on his third cup of coffee. She reached out and swiped the mug out of his reach. He lunged for it with a sound like an angry kitten, and she had to quash the urge to laugh. "That's enough caffeine for you today, genius boy." Then she reached out and tapped the spine of the textbook he'd been racing through. "Hey, let's take a break."

"But we can't go outside."

"I know. We can just…hang time inside."

The resulting silence was awkward, but Penelope refused to give in to Spencer's little kitten glower.

Finally, he set aside his textbook and said, "When I was stuck inside, my mom would read to me."

Penelope knew his mother was a retired literature professor, and that was all she knew about the mysterious Mrs. Reid. "Well, you want me to read to you?"

Spencer tilted his head to one side. "Maybe I could read for you. What would you like to hear?"

Penelope hadn't always been one for literature in high school. Then she grinned. "Show me your romance, mister. How about a Shakespearean sonnet?"

She supposed she shouldn't have been surprised when he recited Sonnet 130 for her from memory, but it blew her away.

 

**reckless**

"You don't think this is just a bit reckless?"

"No one ever has to know," Penelope said. She executed a twirl that forced Spencer to rise up on his toes to keep her hand in his.

"But I'm only fourteen –"

"And if you keep your mouth shut, no one will figure that out." She winked at him and tugged his fedora lower over his eyes.

"I have a boy's figure," Spencer protested, but continued attempting to dance anyway.

"Or a slim girl's figure." Penelope smiled brightly and pulled him into her arms, slowed their pace to an easy sway.

"No one's going to believe that."

"If you're in a girl-cut suit, they might."

Spencer went white, then red. "What? I'm wearing what?"

"Relax – everyone here just thinks you're a really cute lesbian."

Spencer decided he just might want the floor to open, swallow him, and spit him back out in China, despite the physical and geographical impossibility.

 

**blue feathers**

"Is there any particular reason you're wearing blue feathers in your hair?" Spencer blinked at Penelope from over the top of his physics textbook.

"Hm? Oh, no, those are pens." She tugged one out of the bun at the nape of her neck and waved it. "I like to keep them for easy storage. And so I look fabulous."

Spencer eyed the feather-topped pens with trepidation and hoisted his textbook higher. "They don't make you sneeze?"

"No. Why? Do they make _you_ sneeze?" Penelope forced Spencer to lower his book and leaned down to peer at him. She waggled one of the pens for effect.

He ducked away. "No. I don't know. I've never exactly experimented with sneezing."

Penelope waggled the pen right under his nose. Spencer squealed like an indignant kitten and tried to squirm free, but Penelope was persistent. A couple of seconds later, he sneezed.

Penelope cheered.

 

**engine**

"I'm so, so sorry, Spencer. I thought we could go to the mall today, but my car's broken. Something's wrong with the engine." Penelope sighed and ran a hand through her hair.

Spencer frowned and pushed his glasses higher up his nose. "Anything, ah, particular wrong with the engine?"

"I don't know. I'm not very good with engines."

Spencer pushed himself up off the carpet, brushed his hair out of his eyes. "What kind of engine is it again?"

Penelope rattled off the make, model, and year. Spencer nodded thoughtfully and headed for the door. Penelope caught his shoulder.

"Hey, hey, remember what we talked about? The whole communication thing?"

Spencer blinked up at her. "Pardon?"

Penelope reached out and brushed a lock of hair back from his face. "I can't read your mind, remember? Where are you off to? What's going on in there?"

"I'm sure the library has a manual for your car. I'll read it, and then we'll see if we can fix it." Spencer took a deep breath. "Together."

"You can do that?" Penelope asked.

"I can try."

 

**i fired my guardian angel**

Spencer stared at the six-pack of beer.

"Penelope, I don't think this is a good idea. We're both underage, and if we're caught it would be on both our permanent records here at the school, even if I can get my record expunged when I'm eighteen."

Penelope picked up a bottle, tested the weight of it in her hand, and promptly popped the top off using the edge of her desk. "We're in college. It's all about underage drinking your freshman year."

"But we –"

"I fired my guardian angel, Spencer. Set yours free for the night. Bottoms up."

She didn't let him have more than a bottle, but she still had to hold his hair back while he puked.

 

**A veterinarian who is now working at a car wash.**

Spencer peered out the window at the half-broken sign. The neon letters were shattered and flickered weakly, and spelled, in their illuminated totality, Bo 's f it St p nd Ca ash.

"Why do we always come here?"

Penelope cut the engine. "See Henry over there?" She gestured to the elderly man who was wiping down an old Buick.

Spencer nodded. "What about him?"

"He used to be a vet."

"In what war?"

"No, with animals, silly. He tells me about all the animals he treated. Come on." Penelope reached for the door handle. "You should hear him tell the story about the parrot that talked like a pirate."

Spencer studied the man for a long moment, then unbuckled his seatbelt. "Okay."

 

**rage**

"Spencer, we have to learn about boundaries."

Spencer blinked, and Penelope knew that expression. It meant he was confused. So little confused him when it came to his classes that people sometimes forgot that other things could confuse him, those other things mainly being his classmates.

"I don't understand why he left like that. If he genuinely wanted to understand the source of his academic problems, he should more thoroughly explore his study habits and his weekly alcohol intake, which, by my calculations, was excessive and every time he takes another drink he reduces the continued viability of his liver by –"

Penelope sighed and reached out, squeezed his shoulder. "Sweetie, did you see the look on his face?"

"He was an interesting shade of puce that signifies an unhealthily elevated heart rate and blood pressure –"

"That was _rage_ , Spencer. He would have torn your head off if he didn't think he'd risk the entirety of the physics department while he was at it," Penelope said. "Sometimes you have to know what people do and don't want to hear and choose wisely which to say."

Spencer's brow furrowed. "He was angry?"

Penelope ruffled his hair gently. "Come on. Let's get you a book on nonverbal communication."

 

**grounded**

"Spencer Reid, you are _grounded!_ "

Spencer looked so guilty at having exploded a mass of chemicals across Penelope's desk that he started to shuffle for the door, but then he paused and looked confused.

"Ah…are you allowed to ground me in your room?"

Penelope threw her hands up and shook her head, irritated. "No. Sorry. Babysitter reflex. It's just – Spencer, is that acid eating through my desk?"

He blinked, turned, sniffed the air, and began dumping a series of chemicals across her desk.

"Spencer! What are you doing?"

"This will neutralize the reaction and should stop the alkali eating through your desk."

Penelope let out a little squeak when the mixture began to bubble, but soon enough the hissing sound of acid eating through her desk ceased.

Spencer snagged a couple of tissues from the frilly box on the corner of the desk and began mopping up the mess.

"Spencer! What if you burn yourself?"

He paused and looked up at her. "Burn myself on what? When acids and alkalis neutralize each other they just convert into water."

"Oh. Right. I knew that." Penelope sank down on the edge of her bed and hugged her laptop for reassurance.

Once the mess was cleaned up, Spencer threw the tissues away and sat beside her. "I'm sorry, Penelope."

"It's all right. You're still grounded, you know. From doing chem experiments on my desk."

Spencer nodded and rested his head on her shoulder. "Okay."

 

**old job/new job: a surgeon who is now a chef.**

Spencer stared at his grilled cheese sandwich with apparent fascination, then reached out and prodded it with one hand. Penelope, by contrast, was rolling mushu chicken with surprising speed.

"Aren't you hungry?" she asked. "You said you were sick of the cafeteria."

"I was just watching the chef while he made this," Spencer said. His expression was solemn, as if he were watching for the moment an atom splits. "The way he was holding that kitchen knife – surgeons hold scalpels the same way. It was…disturbing. Humans have naturally associative memories, and now I can't look at this without thinking of a doctor cutting into patient."

Penelope glanced over her shoulder at the gruff, grizzled man behind the counter. "Maybe he was a surgeon before he decided to be a diner chef."

Spencer frowned, puzzled. "Why would a surgeon leave his job and become a diner chef?"

Penelope shrugged. "Who knows? Maybe he saw too many horrible things, lost too many patients, and it's easier to be a chef now."

Spencer considered this, and Penelope smiled; he was adorable when he was thinking hard. "Fair enough." And he bit into the sandwich.

 

**friendly monster**

Jeff and Ethan were far, far away, and right now, Spencer's only friend was Penelope. He loved her as if she were a big sister, but there were some things he couldn't tell her. Which was why, late on a Friday night, he was huddled in the phone booth on the corner outside of their usual café.

"It won't hurt you," he said. He smiled tiredly; she always said she could hear him smile. "It's a friendly monster, all right? It won't hurt you. Just…talk to it nicely and walk away. Like you always told me to do with the boys at school."

"Spencer – it's looking at me!"

He took a deep breath. "Just smile and then look away, okay? I have one more test tomorrow and I'll be on the first flight home."

"You do your best now, Spencer. I love you."

"I will. Love you too, Mom."

 

**character stole a car and there is a sleeping person in the back seat.**

Penelope's parents were hippies. When she was five, they were living out of their old Volkswagen bus, and some kid high on something stole the Bus. While she was in it. She'd been dreaming of puppies and running with the wind, and then she'd woken up and seen tunnel lights that she didn't recognize, and the person in the front seat didn't drive like her father at all.

The funny thing was, she hadn't been afraid of the Bus crashing or off the man hurting here – she was just afraid that she would never see her parents again.

So when the police officer knocked on her dorm room door after she got back from dropping Spencer off at the airport, she wasn't sure what to do. What to say. She stood there, motionless, for what seemed like forever, and then the police officer was guiding her to sit on the bed and explaining that it was a senseless tragedy, that the other driver was drunk.

For a moment, Penelope was that little girl, sitting up in the back of the van and watching the strange lights go by. And then her world turned upside down.

 

**you find a box in the attic marked "father" what's inside?**

This year Mom had relented on Christmas, so Spencer was up in the attic, poking for boxes of Christmas decorations. It had been five years since the last time they'd celebrated Christmas, and Spencer was oddly excited. He waded through the stacks of boxes, looking for any marked "Christmas" in his mother's perfect schoolteacher cursive.

The first box that was properly marked was marked 'father'. Spencer stared at it for a long time. It couldn't have been _his_ father's box – that would have been marked "William", wouldn't it?

Spencer tugged the box open, his curiosity getting the better of him, and sank to his knees. He tore through a pile of old clothes – cardigans, sweater vests, slacks, ties, waistcoats – and found a smaller wooden box. He lifted it out carefully and studied the detail work on the lid. He brushed away some of the dust, then eased the box open slowly, leery of fragile hinges.

The box was filled with pictures. Of him. Only they were in black and white, and he had his hair slicked back, and he was wearing the clothes he'd just shoved aside. Spencer turned one of the pictures over. Written on the back was a name, Matthew, and a formula. It took Spencer less time than a blink to solve it. Apparently his mother's father had been an engineer at MIT. Maybe engineering ran in the family.

Spencer replaced everything neatly in the cardboard box, then rose to his feet in search of Christmas lights.

He came back for the clothes a couple of years later when he was taller and couldn't afford to buy anything new to wear because private psychiatric care cost so much and he had to save.

 

**strange lights in the sky at 3am.**

Penelope saw what some might call strange lights in the sky at 3 a.m. She didn't know why Spencer had picked such a horrible time to fly in, and she had no clue what his seemingly sensible retired professor of a mother was thinking, letting him behave like that. But then Spencer was smarter than most adults, and adults sometimes forgot he was only fourteen years old.

Something twisted in her chest when she thought of his mother, because it made her think of _her_ mother, and then she wanted to cry. But she couldn't – it would smudge her mascara and Spencer would know something was wrong. He'd pored over that non-verbal communication book half a dozen times, and he'd memorized it on the first read-through.

As soon as Penelope saw the plane lights overhead, she tugged her jacket closer and headed for the arrivals terminal. Time to smile.

 

**recycled people**

The thing Spencer loved best about Penelope was that she was herself. So many of the other girls on campus, like the few who condescended to talk to him because he was an entertaining curiosity, were copies, recycles, collages of everyone around them so that, in a big enough group, they were indistinguishable to him, unmemorable. Penelope was never one of those – she was herself, blue feathers and all.

Ever since Spencer had returned from Christmas break, she had been acting oddly. He hadn't seen the blue feathers in forever, and she hardly ever smiled. Spencer started bringing her toast in the morning and meeting her outside the girls' dorms instead of the other way around. She would smile at him and thank him, but her smiles never reached her eyes.

She hadn't ruffled his hair in forever.

Spencer wondered if a Penelope without a smile was what happened when a person got recycled.

 

**venus in chains**

Penelope couldn't move, couldn't think. Half a dozen times a day she reached for her phone to call her mother and tell her about class today, about another goofy thing Spencer did, but then her fingertips would hit the cold plastic and she would realize that she'd never hear her mother's voice again.

She moved about the day in chains, deaf to Spencer's cheerful prattle about quarks and ions, oblivious to his puppy-dog smile and the fact that he'd grown at least three inches in the past semester. All she heard was the rattle, rattle, rattle, of the weight dragging down on her shoulders, of the ghosts out of the corner of her eye who would make her start to grin, then want to cry.

"Hey Penelope, want some coffee?"

"Thanks, Spencer," she said, and hardly noticed when he gave her hot chocolate.

She didn't even need caffeine anymore.

 

**clockwork heart**

"Whatcha workin' on?" Penelope asked.

Spencer had a mess of gear and cogs, wheels and wires, chains and gadgets spread out across her desk.

"It's for one of my engineering classes," he said. He had his glasses pushed up his nose and was working with two pairs of pliers. The boy did have lovely, dexterous hands. "It's a clockwork heart."

"Clockwork heart?" Penelope considered the mess of mechanisms. It sounded lovely, a heart that could start and stop at will, that wouldn't feel unless she told it to.

"Not like a real heart, obviously – no blood and no, ah, metaphysical elements either. But it's going to be the central mover and shaker, as it were, in my new project." Spencer smiled up at her. "You can have it when I'm done. It'll be pretty."

Pretty. Penelope didn't care about pretty anymore. But she ruffled Spencer's hair and smiled thinly. "Thanks, O Genius Mine."

 

**pale and fragile**

These days Penelope looked fragile. She thought Spencer didn't notice, but he watched her when they sat in the cafeteria sometimes. If he sipped his coffee quietly and stared out the window at the passing students, she would fall silent of her chatter, which he sensed was more and more forced these days, and after a few minutes he could look at her unnoticed and study the tired paleness of her eyes.

"Hey, Penelope, when I, ah, become of age, will you take me to a, er, a strip club?" He was bright red by the end of it, but she didn't even blink.

Spencer sipped his coffee some more and wondered how long Penelope would stay in his life. She'd skipped half her classes this semester already, and if she wasn't going to withdraw, the administration was probably going to do it for her.

Spencer leaned across the table and said, "Hey, today's national limerick day. I read a score of them as a child when I wasn't supposed to."

Penelope still stared off into the distance.

Spencer sighed and sipped his coffee again. He recognized that distant look – he'd seen it in William Reid's eyes when he was ten.

 

**saying goodbye**

Penelope wasn't sure what she'd said to the RA who ran Freak Street, but he let her into the boys' hall and onto Spencer's floor. Maybe it was the dead expression she wore that she hadn't been able to shake for weeks, or maybe it was the way her mascara was running and mixing with her tears, but the RA let her in.

She'd learned to pick locks a long time ago, so she made use of her father-taught skills and opened Spencer's door.

In sleep he looked even younger than he did while awake and wandering wide-eyed across the campus. His brown hair was mussed from tossing and turning, and his pajama top was slipping down one shoulder. He stirred slightly when the door creaked fully open, but Penelope was careful not to let the light hit his face. Spencer had informed her more than once that light disrupted REM cycles.

"I'm so sorry," she whispered, stroked a hand over his hair.

He wrinkled his nose in his sleep and automatically leaned into her caress. She bit her hip to keep back a sob, left the bouquet of flowers on his nightstand next to his glasses, and stepped back. She took another step back, and another, then walked away.

 

**pink tulips**

Spencer had always associated the words "good bye" and a letter with the last time he saw William Reid. He'd never thought he'd associate a bouquet of pink tulips and a note with the gaping absence Penelope Garcia had left in his life. He kept the note pinned to his corkboard beside his answer to the three body problem, and every now and again he would look at it and smile a little bit.

_Thanks for making my freshman year awesome. With you I was the freshest of the fresh. Rock the world, O Genius Mine._

The other boys on his floor stopped calling him Blondie's Sidekick, and he stopped getting toast at the cafeteria, but he kept drinking coffee, and occasionally he would go outside and see the sun.


End file.
